Part 1 of a 2-part online series designed to explore issues surrounding a cover story written for the September 2007 issue of Plugged In magazine about the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
For days, now, I've watched grown men hit, kick and choke each other.
No, it wasn't a bunch of overenthusiastic dads at my son's latest soccer tourney. I was watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the centerpiece of what's supposed to be the nation's fastest growing sport—mixed martial arts. Teens and twentysomethings (most of them male) are lapping this stuff up like so much mint ice cream, if the ratings can be believed. So if you haven't heard about the UFC, it's just a matter of time.
Admittedly, I'm not much of a fight guy. My biceps are about as thick as your average highlighter pen. And I have the street cred of Rachael Ray. But you don't need to be tough to watch the UFC, and since I was writing a story about the sport for the September print issue of Plugged In, I immersed myself in as much UFC action as I could.
I now know the difference between an anaconda choke and a triangle choke, and that "ground and pound" is a fighting style, not something your mom does to particularly tough cuts of Wal-Mart Grade-B chuck steak. Actually, I'm pretty sure I now know everything worth knowing about the UFC—which amounts to exactly seven things:
1. They're in Shape. And I'm Not.
Watching these athletes perform in the Octagon (the UFC's iconic "ring" surrounded by chain-link fence) made me feel like putting away the Cheetos and do some sit-ups. Fans say UFC fighters are among the best-conditioned athletes in the world and, after watching a few fights, I believe it. Though the UFC of a decade ago was filled with tubby barroom bouncers willing to slap belly flab up against one another for a few bucks, many of today's fighters were All-American wrestlers or martial-arts champs before they moved to the UFC.
2. It's Sport and Science!
OK, maybe science is too strong a word. But many fighters employ a generous dose of strategy in their bouts. Successful ones must pull from literally dozens of different combat styles—from Greco-Roman wrestling to Brazilian jiu-jitsu to Thai kickboxing. Your opponent might be as likely to dive for your legs as swing at your head, which means you've got to think fast to counter. Even a tenderfoot like me can see the chess match a layer beneath the kicks and hits.
3. Head-Butts and Hair Pulling Have Been Replaced With (a Few) Rules.
The UFC gained notoriety back in the 1990s as "human cockfighting." Back then you could count the rules of the sport on one hand and have a few (broken) fingers left over. It was legal to head-butt your opponent, pull his hair or kick him in the groin. I figured it'd be just a matter of time before someone decided to stick lions in the Octagon. Today's UFC is, relatively speaking, kinder, gentler and more legitimate. It has rules and weight classes now, and organization president Dana White is almost evangelical in his push to make people see UFC as a bona fide sport. These days, any in-the-know UFC fan will tell you that the UFC is statistically safer than boxing.
4. The Average Bout Is More Boring Than Brutal ...
The UFC hypes the hitting, the kicking and the blood. But many bouts wind up with both fighters on the ground, each trying to immobilize the other like a couple of amped-up octopi fighting over a sand dollar. Guys getting up for popcorn move farther than the combatants in some of these matches.
5. ... But the Blood Can Still Fly.
If 75 percent of UFC fights are glorified college wrestling matches, the other 25 percent can be vicious. Contestants sometimes whale away at each other's faces with their barely padded, fingerless gloves. When a man takes a tumble, his opponent doesn't saunter to a neutral corner: He pounces for the kill, often straddling the downed fighter and using both fists to bludgeon the sides of his victim's head. The Octagon mat can turn pink from the blood, and by the end of some fights, faces actually begin to resemble that Wal-Mart steak I mentioned earlier. The real damage, however, could come via the often innocuous-looking holds in which some of these guys specialize. A fighter will grab his opponent's arms and torque them in such a way that the grabbed guy has only two choices: Give in ... or go home with a broken arm. Choke holds can be worse. If you don't give up, you'll lose consciousness. The hold doesn't do any permanent harm, we're told—but there's no getting around the fact that, if it lasts too long, very nasty things can happen. Thus, it's worth noting that nearly every fighting technique showcased in UFC matches was originally designed for one purpose: to hurt or kill someone else.
6. Commercials Are Crass
The UFC taps into one of humanity's basest, most unappealing desires when it crafts its come-ons: the urge to see one human being dominate and destroy another. Promos don't showcase the sport's human chess matches. They feature its most ferocious moments, where the fists and feet thud into bloodied, sometimes helpless bodies. When contestants for the related reality show The Ultimate Fighter are introduced, for instance, their names are placed on top of simulated blood spatter. Even the Octagon itself, with its caged-animal theme and chain-link enclosure, exudes a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome-like vibe. You can almost hear the narrator gloat, "Two go in, one comes out."
7. It's "Inspiring"
No, not in the way a sunrise is inspiring or a Little League home run is inspiring. It's inspiring in the way professional wrestling is inspiring: prompting young fans to beat each other to a pulp. A quick scan of YouTube reveals flocks of UFC wannabees taking each other on in basements and backyards. And, anecdotally, doctors report seeing more children in emergency rooms because of it.
So, what do these seven observations about the UFC mean? That ultimate fighting isn't as despicable as it might be, or even as it was. But it still can be plenty violent—far more violent, for my money, than boxing. Sure, it's said to be safer. No one has died in a sanctioned UFC match, compared to the half-dozen or so boxers killed every year in the ring. But the UFC is young, and everyone knows it's just a matter of time.
The UFC is a sport. But it's the only sport that I've ever felt guilty about watching. It is, at its core, licensed savagery.
In Part 2, Paul Asay comes up with an honorary 8th key observation about the UFC: Christians fight, too.
Part 1 | Part 2 | You and the UFC
